Cancelled Recordings - Broadcast Update?

Our HR34 cancelled three recordings today (so far), two on ESPN for the British Open (4am and 6am PDT) and one on ESPN2 for NHRA (2pm PDT).

All three show the following notice in History....
This episode was cancelled because a broadcast update did not arrive in time. (13)

DTV support has no idea what this means, there's nothing in the CSR database.

It seems to me like it's some sort of guide data issue but I've never seen the "broadcast update" thing before.

All three recordings have been in the guide for more than a week and all three actually broadcast right on time. In fact, I noticed the two Open recordings missing and looked at the history at 2:05pm. That's when I noticed the NHRA recording had been cancelled too. I switched to ESPN2 and the show was in progress so it definitely began at 2pm as scheduled.

I just got this same error. Recording Sunday Ticket game between Carolina and New Orleans (I missed a good game! dang!).

Additionally, I usually record Sports Center @ 3am. Every other recording of this seems to bump the record time to 6am! As if it thinks every other day I've moved to the East Coast or something! HR34 firmware needs some work but I suspect this "guide" related error/feature is common across all DTV DVR's.

HR34 firmware needs some work but I suspect this "guide" related error/feature is common across all DTV DVR's.

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Has happened to me several times on my HR24. In at least two instances I know the show that was set to record was on at the time it was set to record even though the DVR failed to record it saying there was a programming change. For the other instances I don't know if there was a programming change or not but my guess would be probably not. Very frustrating.

Yesterday's coverage of the PGA Championship on TNT was canceled by our HR22-100, and this error was given as the reason why. Everything else recorded fine yesterday, including the CBS coverage of the same event.

I think Tribune gives each show a number which is how the DVR knows to record it when it is set up as a series link. In addition, the guide is being updated continuously which is why sometimes you see a news-type program's description change when it is covering a recent newsworty incident. But I think sometimes when this update comes through the NUMBER of the program gets changed even if the TITLE does not. Perhaps that is what produces this error. The DVR knows it's titled the same and it's at the same time but the number doesn't match the one in the TO DO list so it skips it.

I think Tribune gives each show a number which is how the DVR knows to record it when it is set up as a series link. In addition, the guide is being updated continuously which is why sometimes you see a news-type program's description change when it is covering a recent newsworty incident. But I think sometimes when this update comes through the NUMBER of the program gets changed even if the TITLE does not. Perhaps that is what produces this error. The DVR knows it's titled the same and it's at the same time but the number doesn't match the one in the TO DO list so it skips it.

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Put more simply, the metadata of a show can change after the DVR has decided to record it (it meets all conditions of the SL) which means it may no longer meet those conditions. This makes sense for a situation where one show is replaced by a wholly different show (such as when Grimm might be pre-empted by a special about a breaking news event). It does not make sense when at the eleventh hour ABC decides to cram another minute of commercials into Private Practice shuffling the start time of Revenge. But, guess what? That is enough to completely scuttle a recording. I've seen it happen. And it appears that for live events, where metadata can change more dynamically, it often does just that.

What does this mean? It means we can't trust our DVRs to record what we tell them to. Up until about 2010 that was not the way things were; the HD DVR+ was pretty reliable in that regard. But something changed, and since then we have to regularly check to make sure SL eps are still scheduled, and we also need to babysit live event recordings if we want to have half a chance of really getting them. This used to be a reason to have DTV over DISH (who was notorious for that problem). Now DTV is just as bad.

I will admit it might just be more complex a problem than I am giving it credit for, but it seems like a no-brainer to record an event that is scheduled, EVEN IF the schedule or some aspect of its metadata changes. IOW, record the damned time slot regardless, and let us, after the fact, worry about whether it got the program that was at one time supposed to be there. Err on the side of caution; record anyway even if there is some metadata dust up, and we are still probably more likely to up the percentage of successful recordings than under the current thinking. If we get something else in the recording, we'll just delete it. That's a lot easier to live with than a missing ep in a serialized drama. Then put a friggin' exclamation point icon on whatever was recorded letting us know that there might be a mixup there. How hard could that be?

I think Tribune gives each show a number which is how the DVR knows to record it when it is set up as a series link. In addition, the guide is being updated continuously which is why sometimes you see a news-type program's description change when it is covering a recent newsworty incident. But I think sometimes when this update comes through the NUMBER of the program gets changed even if the TITLE does not. Perhaps that is what produces this error. The DVR knows it's titled the same and it's at the same time but the number doesn't match the one in the TO DO list so it skips it.

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I have seen what you describe in the past, but the message in DVR history is different. I don't remember the exact wording, but it refers to an update in the program guide that did not match the item set to record. In this case, the DVR is saying that an update did not arrive (i.e. there was supposed to be updated info but the DVR did not receive it).

In my case, we had stormy weather a couple days before the canceled recording. There was signal loss during that period, and I am wondering if maybe this interrupted a guide update that was in progress at the time, which might have led to the DVR losing track of this episode. I will admit that I did not check the To Do List between that day and when the recording was to take place, so I cannot say if it was still scheduled.